The Indonesian Navy has awarded a contract to Daewoo Shipbuilding and
Marine Engineering (DSME) to build three submarines in a move to
modernise its capabilities in line with other countries across the
Asia-Pacific region.

Under the $1.07bn order, DSME will build and
deliver three 1,400t customised versions of the Type 209-class vessel
for the Indonesian Navy.

The agreement to acquire additional
submarines is part of the Indonesian Government's 2024 Defence Strategic
Plan, according to which the navy will be equipped with ten submarines
representing the minimum required essential force.

DSME will
construct two submarines in South Korea in partnership with shipbuilder
PT PAL and the third submarine will be constructed at PT PAL's
facilities in Surabaya, Indonesia.

The new vessels will be added to the existing Indonesian fleet of submarines, the KRI Cakra and KRI Nenggala.

The
61.3m-long Chang Bogo-class Type 209 is a diesel-electric attack
submarine equipped with eight weapon tubes for torpedoes and other
weapons, and can accommodate a crew of 40.

The Type 209 submarine
was first developed by Germany in the early 1970s and Korea bought the
technology licence to produce it in the beginning stage.

The
submarine incorporates four 120-cell batteries, two main ballast tanks,
aft trim tanks, and is powered by four MTU diesels and four AEG
generators, attached directly to a five or seven-bladed propeller.

Construction on the submarines is expected to begin in January 2012 and be complete by the first half of 2018.

DSME competed against manufacturers from France, Russia and Germany for the Indonesian Navy contract.

divendres, 30 de desembre de 2011

The commander of Iran's
navy said the reconnaissance mission was proof that his fleet had "control
over the moves by foreign forces" but it was unclear what intelligence
could be derived from the grainy video, which was played triumphantly on
state television.

Admiral Habibollah Sayyari's statement came as Iranian ships, helicopters and
submarines continued a 10-day war game exercise designed to give credibility
to the country's threat to close the Strait and choke off the world's oil
supplies if the West moves ahead with sanctions.

The drill is underway in international waters near the Strait and only a few
hundred miles from America's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet. The US Navy has
vowed to prevent any closure of the channel, through which 15 million
barrels of oil pass every day.

A Navy spokeswoman would not comment on the footage but confirmed that the USS
John C Stennis, one of the fleet's largest carriers, was on a "routine
transit" through the Strait to provide support to Nato forces in
Afghanistan.

Despite the Fifth Fleet's advantage in firepower, a senior Revolutionary Guard
commander vowed yesterday that "Any threat will be responded [to] by
threat."

"We will not relinquish our strategic moves if Iran's vital interests are
undermined by any means," General Hossein Salami told Press TV.

This afternoon, the US also announced it was selling more than 80 F-15 strike
aircraft to Saudi Arabia, an American ally and Iran's main rival for
military dominance in the Middle East. Without specifically naming Iran, the
State Department said the sale was intended as "a strong message to
countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in
the Gulf and broader Middle East."

Barry Pavel, Director of the Brent Scowcroft Centre on International Security
at the Atlantic Council, said that Iran's navy was potentially capable of
closing the Strait but would be unlikely to do so because of the country's
dependence on revenues from oil exports. "It would have to be a very
extreme situation for Iran to basically shut down its own economy," he
said.

The Iranian threat to close the narrow shipping lane was made after the EU,
backed by the US, announced it was tightening sanctions on Iran for pressing
ahead with its nuclear programme. Europe buys around 20 per cent of all
Iranian oil exports and a full embargo would cause serious damage to Iran's
economy.

dijous, 29 de desembre de 2011

Russia’s Nerpa nuclear submarine has finished sea trials and is now ready to be leased to the Indian navy in the next few days, an engineer said on Wednesday.

“The submarine is now fully ready to carry out its tasks,” a senior
executive at the Amur Shipyard, where the submarine was built, told RIA
Novosti. “It will be handed over before the end of the year.”

When Russia makes the delivery, it will make India only the sixth
operator of nuclear submarines in the world. Earlier this month, it
launched the first of its own nuclear submarines.

The ten-year lease is worth $920 milion.

The Nerpa, an Akula II-class attack submarine, had originally been
scheduled for delivery in 2008 but an accident earlier that year forced
the Russian authorities to put it on hold.

Twenty people, mostly civilians, were killed when a fire-suppressant
gas was released on the Nerpa during shakedown trials, in one of
Russia’s worst naval accidents.

A backpack-size kamikaze drone ordered into combat by the U.S.
Army could also soon become an aerial scout for U.S. Navy submarines
hidden beneath the waves. Launching a flying robot from underwater
utilizes a sneaky tactic — using a tube that normally ejects trash from a
submarine.

The Navy wants the "Switchblade" drone
designed by AeroVironment to become a flying scout capable of spotting
enemy ships over the horizon, even as the "mother" submarine remains
hidden underwater. Its upcoming submarine launch test would coincide
with the world's biggest naval war games in 2012, according to a new contract awarded to U.S. defense firm Raytheon.

Previous tests by Raytheon in 2008 showed how submerged launch
vehicles can float to the surface and launch flying drones such as the
Switchblade. But those demonstrations only involved surface ships and
dummy drones.

The planned submarine launch would use the trash-disposal unit — the
tube that typically ejects the trash of submarine crews — rather than
one of several torpedo tubes designed to fire at enemy ships or
submarines. Such a launch would take place with the submarine running
just beneath the waves at periscope depth.

The Switchblade drone was originally designed to launch from a tube
set up on the ground by a U.S. Army soldier, fly around until the
soldier identified an enemy, and then dive at the target with explosive
results. It's unclear whether or not the Navy wants the Switchblade to
keep its kamikaze capability, but the scouting role seems far more useful for a submarine that already packs plenty of explosive torpedoes and missiles.

Any intended mission may become clearer during the Rim of the Pacific Exercise scheduled for 2012. That annual naval war game
held by the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific involves plenty of
opportunity for practice alongside ships ranging from carriers to
destroyers and frigates.

If successful, Switchblade would join the U.S. military's
fast-growing arsenal of robots at sea. The Navy has already begun
testing a stealthy X-47B drone
that could someday launch in squadrons from the heaving decks of
carriers, as well as a Fire-X helicopter drone aimed at special
operations such as catching smugglers or pirates.

dilluns, 26 de desembre de 2011

For decades debate and recrimination has raged over where the ship was heading
when it was torpedoed by a Royal Navy submarine.

Britain received international criticism after the sinking after the Argentine
Junta announced that the warship had been returning to its home port and was
outside the 200 mile exclusion zone imposed by Whitehall.

But Major David Thorp, who spent 34 years working as a signals expert in
military intelligence, has disclosed for the first time that he was asked to
carry out a trawl of all the intelligence on the sinking at the direct
request of Margaret Thatcher a few months after the end of the war.

He was ordered to compile a report for the Prime Minister called “The Sinking
of the Belgrano” that has never been published.

From his own signals intercepts and those from other Government agencies, he
proved that the Argentine cruiser was heading into the exclusion zone.

Major Thorp was in charge of a top secret signals interception section hidden
on the amphibious warship Intrepid as it steamed with the Task Force.

Around Ascension Island, 4,000 miles from the Falklands, his team began
picking up naval communications sent to the Argentine fleet which they were
easily able to decipher.

The report states that in late April 1982, they intercepted a message sent
from naval headquarters ordering the Belgrano and its escorts to a grid
reference within the exclusion zone and not back to base as the Argentines
later claimed.

The Belgrano was sunk by two torpedoes fired by the hunter-killer submarine
Conqueror on May 2 with the loss of 323 lives a number of miles outside the
exclusion zone.

“For some reason they decided on a rendezvous point still within the exclusion
zone,” Major Thorp said. “Whether they were trying to raise a thumb at us I
don’t know. At the time I thought it was strange thinking why didn’t they go
straight into port?”

In his new book, The Silent Listener, Major Thorp wrote: “The findings
of my final report stated the destination of the vessel was not to her home
port as the Argentine Junta stated but the objective of the ship was to
relocate to a prearranged RV within the exclusion zone.”

Despite the report being read by Mrs Thatcher she never disclosed the
information either in Parliament or elsewhere possibly because she did not
want to reveal Britain’s eavesdropping capabilities.

But during her infamous BBC exchange with the schoolteacher Diana Gould who
confronted her on the sinking Mrs Thatcher made an intriguing reference to
the report saying: "One day, all of the facts, in about 30 years time,
will be published." Mrs Gould died earlier this month.

In recent years the Argentine navy has accepted that the sinking of the
Belgrano was a legitimate act of war.

In his book, that was cleared by the security services, Major Thorp also
discloses for the first time how the British code-cracking operation gave
the force a significant advantage.

Shortly before the Battle of Goose Green, Lt Col “H” Jones, the commander of
2nd Bn The Parachute Regiment, boarded Intrepid after hearing about the
eavesdroppers through SAS colleagues.

“That morning we had picked up 10 grid references on intercepts and H looked
at the map and realised that they were his own troops’ locations. He said
“bloody hell we are sharing the same hill as the enemy.’”

“He wanted to know the strengths and weaknesses of the Argentines, then we
looked at calibre of people on ground and he came to the conclusion that
perhaps 600 Paras were worth 1,500 Argentines.”

The intelligence gave the commanding officer the “peace of mind” to start the
battle that would lead in his own death, a posthumous Victoria Cross award
and ultimately victory in the campaign.

Four naval strategists take a look back at Navy-Air
Force cooperation in the past to explain all the buzz surrounding this
latest strategy.

The Navy-Air Force AirSea Battle Concept (ASBC), modeled after the
Army-Air Force Air Land Battle Doctrine of a previous generation, has
been heralded by some as the answer to compelling strategic and
operational challenges facing the U.S. military today. But is this
really a new strategy? And old or new, will it help the United States deal with compelling world-wide issues?

Understanding where we have been may provide insight into where we
can go and what we can accomplish with this concept. It may also prepare
the Navy and Air Force for some of the likely as well as unintended
consequences this concept may create.

Writing in a National Defense University National War College
publication in 1992, then-Commander James Stavridis stated: "We need an
air sea battle concept centered on an immediately deployable, highly
capable, and fully integrated force-an Integrated Strike Force."1 As this quote-by now-Admiral Stavridis, the current Supreme Allied Commander Europe-suggests,
neither the term "AirSea Battle Concept" nor the concept itself is
brand new. Rather, this integration of sea and air forces has roots that
extend back over a half-century.

Taking to the Air Against U-Boats

The first useful example of an ASBC occurred during the Battle of the
Atlantic campaign to defeat German U-boats. By January 1943, more than
100 submarines were prowling the Atlantic Ocean. Their most effective
hunting ground was in the so-called "air gap" between the southern tip
of Greenland and the longest range of patrol aircraft based in North
America. In this area, convoys relied on their own surface escorts for
protection.

Previously, Atlantic convoys had often been routed around U-boats
waiting to ambush them by using intelligence based on ULTRA decrypts of
intercepted German radio communications. But before the Allies could
effectively pinpoint the locations of the U-boats using ULTRA, for three
weeks in March 1943 wolf packs operating mostly in the air gap sank
more than 20 percent of all Allied shipping plying the North Atlantic.
During this same month British, Canadian, and American forces
responsible for countering the U-boat threat put a plan in place to
allocate a small force of very-long-range B-24 Liberator aircraft to
cover the gap.

When the B-24s and aircraft from the newly assigned escort carriers
started covering convoys, the advantage tipped in favor of the Allies.
In May 1943, the German Navy lost 47 U-boats in the North Atlantic. When
this precursory ASBC was expanded in October 1943 to include long-range
Allied patrol aircraft operating from the Azores, U-boats were at
greater risk over even larger areas of the Atlantic.

In this long campaign, British, Canadian, and U.S. forces considered
and implemented a number of other coordinated air-sea battle tactics,
including: bombing the U-boat bases on the French coast; ambushing
U-boats transiting the Bay of Biscay from the air; targeting the yards
where they were built; and reinforcing surface convoy escorts with
land-based blimps and seaplanes.

All of these efforts were part of an extended air-sea battle of
attrition, where Allied air and naval units worked together to punch
through an anti-access, area-denial envelope that German naval forces
tried to impose on the North Atlantic sea lanes. Over the course of that
long campaign, naval and air officers developed means of cooperation
and coordination-especially of air assets-that
prevailed. But it is important to understand that the Navy, by itself,
was able then and is capable now to conduct an air-sea battle. The
salient question is, to what extent did and does cooperation either make
U.S. forces more efficient or create real synergy?

Aircraft and Amphibs in the Philippines

Another useful illustration is the effective air-sea campaign waged
in and around the Philippines in late 1944 by U.S. Army and Navy
aircraft and Navy and Marine Corps amphibious forces. U.S carrier task
forces and U.S. Army long-range, land-based air forces struck distant
Japanese bases and made it difficult for the Japanese to reinforce their
air assets in the Philippines. Moreover, the 7th Fleet escort carriers
directly under General Douglas MacArthur's command provided fighter and
attack support in a display of real integration.

The key factor-well understood by both Army and Navy planners?-was
the critical role long-range, land-based aviation had in expanding the
offensive air envelope under which amphibious forces operated.
Accordingly, the Army and Navy assaulted the islands of Biak and Morotai
before moving on to Leyte because air units flying from those islands
were crucial to the penetration of Japanese defenses in the Philippines.

Thus, Navy and Army air assets complemented each other to accomplish
critical operational tasks to support campaign victories in both the
Atlantic and Pacific theaters during World War II. The precedent had
been set, crucial lessons learned, and the power and synergy of the
combined land- and sea-based air forces established.

Why the AirSea Battle Concept?

Earlier this year, Todd Harrison wrote the following in The New Guns Versus Butter Debate,
published by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA):
"The fiscal reality is that in a flat or declining budgetary
environment, [the DOD] cannot continue to do both [fund personnel
accounts as well as acquisition accounts] to the same extent it does
today."2

Throughout the Cold War, the potential fight on the plains of Europe
dominated U.S. strategic thinking. The military element of this
strategy, primarily carried out by the Army and Air Force, had by the
1980s evolved into what became known as the AirLand Battle Doctrine. The
doctrine led to new operational concepts that recognized an emerging
threat based on Soviet numerical superiority coupled with a narrowing
technological gap. A memorandum cosigned by the Army and Air Force
chiefs outlined steps to achieve procurement and operational synergies
to restore conventional warfighting capabilities after the Vietnam War.

But for nearly a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S.
military-strategic planners had little motivation to develop a broad
fighting doctrine, and the services had even less incentive to
collaborate.

The one notable exception to this came during Operation Desert Storm.
But in that case, the opposing air and sea forces were minimal and the
core doctrine only tangentially employed. By the early 1990s, analysis
by the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment began to examine whether a
"dramatic shift in the character of military competitions was underway."
Their prescient conclusion now resonates as they highlighted the real
possibility of the rise of potential challenge from a "peer competitor"
(i.e., China) and a "second order challenge from a 'non-peer' competitor" (i.e., Iran).3

Pentagon strategists examining the changing nature of warfare were
given new impetus by the congressionally mandated National Defense Panel
(NDP) 1997 report's conclusion that "The United States 'must radically alter' the way in which its military projects power."4
However, this momentum slowed as the attacks of 9/11 dramatically
changed the focus of the U.S. military to the exigencies of a war on
terrorism.

The Timeline, China, and the Economy

By the end of the first decade of the 21st century several trends
converged that demanded a new focus on an ASBC. One was the Obama
administration's shift in emphasis away from the war on terrorism and
its decision to draw down the U.S. commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan on
a finite timeline. A second was the startlingly rapid rise of China
over this decade. As the head of Pacific Command, Admiral Robert
Willard, has noted, "Elements of China's military modernization appear
designed to challenge our freedom of action in the region."5 And a third was the unanticipated economic recession faced by the United States.

On the heels of the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s, and with
the federal budget deficit running in excess of $1.5 trillion in Fiscal
Year 2010, the age-old "guns versus butter" debate has brought into
sharper focus the consistent theme that the U.S. military may not have
the strategic assets needed to deter, and if necessary prevail, against a
high-end peer competitor like China. A key assumption underpinning the
ASBC is that without better coordination between and among the U.S.
military services, especially the Navy and the Air Force, this outcome
is all but guaranteed. Moreover, the concept will have limited or no
effect unless these joint air and naval planners tie actual operational
requirements to specific capabilities.

Faced with a rising threat of peer and near-peer competitors with alarming anti-access/area-denial capabilities-as well as long-term budget pressures-the
ASBC can be viewed as greater than an attempt to do more with less.
Rather, it is a return to historical precedents when, like today,
compelling strategic and operational realities forced U.S. naval and air
forces to work together in a truly integrated fashion to
project power against a determined foe. But a skeptic who doubts the
ability of the current procurement system to respond in a meaningful way
to this rising challenge may opine that the ASBC will only result in a
rearrangement of existing doctrine and systems and not be a truly
adaptive and dynamic approach.

Just What Is the AirSea Battle Concept?

Also earlier this year, the CSBA published Air Sea Battle: A Point of Departure Operational Concept,
which stated: "The most important question proponents of the AirSea
Battle Concept must answer is whether the concept would help to restore
and sustain a stable military balance in the Western Pacific."6

At the request of Secretary of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chief
of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead and Air Force Chief of Staff
General Norton Schwartz directed an effort to explore how U.S air and
naval forces could combine and integrate their capabilities to confront
increasingly complex threats to U.S. freedom of action.7

To gain a global perspective, this joint team interviewed each U.S.
combatant commander to understand the scope of threats they are likely
to face over the next 10 to 20 years, particularly at the "high-end of
warfare." Government officials have been keen to point out that the ASBC
is not aimed at any particular country or region. But ultimately, the
goal is to identify how combined Air Force and Navy capabilities can
address these threats.8

After months of teasers and speculation in defense journals and conferences, the release of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)
provided greater clarity on the scope and raison d'être behind this
concept. As part of its guidance to rebalance the force, the QDR directed the development of the air-sea battle concept to:

[Defeat] adversaries across the range of military operations,
including adversaries equipped with sophisticated anti-access and area
denial capabilities. The concept will address how air and naval forces
will integrate capabilities across all operational domains-air, sea, land, space, and cyberspace-to counter growing challenges to U.S. freedom of action.9

Protecting Power-Projection Capability

Independent analysts have been less reticent in naming specific
regional adversaries. Two studies by the CSBA highlight the efforts of
China and Iran as catalysts behind the concept. As the first of these
studies lays out, both nations are investing in capabilities to "raise
precipitously over time-and perhaps prohibitively-the cost to the United States of projecting power into two areas of vital interest: the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf."10
By adopting anti-access/area-denial capabilities, these potential
adversaries seek to deny U.S forces the sanctuary of forward bases, hold
aircraft carriers and their air wings at risk, and cripple U.S. battle
networks. In other words, strike at the weak point of U.S.
power-projection capability. To be effective, the ASBC must change that
through a combination of capabilities and operational warfighting. If it
doesn't, adversaries will still be able to deny access to U.S. forces.

In its second study, AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept,
CSBA analyzes possible options to counter the anti-access/area-denial
(A2/AD) threat posed by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).
First and foremost, CSBA argues, the AirSea Battle Concept should help
"set the conditions" to retain a favorable military balance in the
Western Pacific.11
By creating credible capabilities to defeat A2/AD threats, the United
States can enhance stability in the Western Pacific and lower the
possibility of escalation by deterring inclinations to challenge the
United States or coerce regional allies.12

The precise nature of the ASBC will not be known until Pentagon
planners complete their work. But based on the broad outlines of the
CSBA's Point-of-Departure Operational Concept study, it is
likely that in the initial stages of hostilities the United States would
need to withstand an initial attack and limit damage to U.S. and allied
forces while executing a blinding campaign against the PLA battle
networks. However, the need to withstand an initial attack is a
potential flaw in the CSBA plan. Prudence and technical reality would
suggest that the ASBC should find a way to make U.S. forces less visible
and targetable while retaining the ability to be forward with credible
combat power. Being less visible and targetable raises the risk of
initiating a first strike and contributes to deterring a potential foe.

Failing deterrence, the ASBC assumes that a conflict with China would
involve a protracted campaign where U.S-led forces would then sustain
and exploit the initiative in various domains, conduct distant blockade
operations against ships bound for China, maintain operational
logistics, and ramp up industrial production of needed hardware,
especially precision-guided munitions. However, it is important to note
that in a shorter (and perhaps more likely) conflict, blockade,
logistics, and procurement will have minimal impact on the outcome.

The Strategy

But it is the ways Navy and Air Force assets would provide mutual
support in this campaign that can make the ASBC, if it evolves in a
manner that many strategic thinkers believe it should, a modern-day
equivalent of some of the innovative strategies and tactics employed by
U.S. air and sea forces in World War II. If the ASBC evolves as the CSBA
study suggests, Navy and Air Force planners may evolve a strategy in
which:

Navy Aegis ships would supplement other missile-defense assets in Air Force forward bases in the Western Pacific.

Long-range penetrating strike operations would destroy PLA
ground-based, long-range maritime surveillance systems and long-range
ballistic-missile launchers to expand the Navy's freedom of maneuver and
reduce strikes on U.S. and allied bases. Concurrently, Navy
submarine-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and
strike support against PLA integrated air defense systems would pave
the way for Air Force strikes.

Navy carrier-based fighters' progressive rollback of PLA manned and
unmanned airborne ISR platforms and fighters would secure the forward
operation of Air Force tankers and other support aircraft. This would
require the Navy to rethink its current inventory of missiles, jammers,
and decoys.

Air Force aircraft would support the antisubmarine warfare campaign
through offensive mining by stealthy bombers and persistent non-stealthy
bomber strike support of Navy ships conducting distant blockade
operations.13

The evidence also suggests that this ASBC will, indeed, gain
traction throughout the U.S. military. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
Admiral Mike Mullen has already put his imprint on the concept. Speaking
at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation and commissioning ceremony
earlier this year he noted, "[The ASBC] is a prime example of how we
need to keep breaking down stovepipes between services, between federal
agencies, and even between nations."14

Implications of an Evolving Concept

According to CSBA's study, AirSea Battle: A Point-of- Departure Operational Concept,
"The Defense Department's Program of Record forces and current concepts
of operations do not accord sufficient weight to the capabilities
needed to successfully execute an AirSea Battle campaign."15

However the elements outlined here combine to form a coherent ASBC,
myriad strategic, institutional, and programmatic implications, both
understood and unintentional, will arise. These will vary depending on
the concepts envisioned and the course adopted. A sampling of a few that
may immediately surface include:

Naming Names-U.S.
policy toward China has been centered on managing the "peaceful rise"
of this emerging peer competitor across a broad range of issues.
Moreover, the United States has been careful not to paint China as a
threat or engage in activities that could lead to an arms race. This may
be changing, and the development of the ASBC may contribute to this
change.

By actively and publicly planning, training, and equipping a joint
air-sea force to confront even something as benignly described as a
"pacing threat," the United States is implicitly challenging China's
military influence in Asia. It is one thing for the independent thinkers
at CSBA to issue a set of reports and conceptual papers on the ASBC; it
is quite another for Navy and Air Force staffs to collaborate on a
comprehensive approach to counter PLA systems, doctrine, and operational
plans.

Reassurance-A
growing perception on the part of U.S. allies and potential partners in
the region is that American naval and air forces have not kept pace
with expanding Chinese military capabilities.

The premise of the ASBC in fact rests on this trend. With this
perception, countries have started to rethink their political, economic,
and military strategies to ensure their continued security and
independence as U.S. will, capacity, and capability wane. A serious,
sustained commitment to ASBC will reinforce credible U.S. combat power
and will assuage and persuade both friend and foe of America's
commitment to the region. However, failure to fully embrace and enact
the ASBC could have opposite and unforeseeable strategic consequences.

Dispersed Basing-A
critical implied task in articulating the operational construct of the
ASBC will be to find ways to reduce risk to both land and sea air bases,
to minimize the impact of early salvo strikes, and to persist in any
protracted war longer than a couple of weeks. Beyond extensive hardening
and rapid runway repair, dispersal may emerge as an effective
operational approach likely to be considered.

But dispersal is not without its challenges. Domestic political
objections in countries where the United States will desire multiple
basing options, including the creative approaches of the Cold War such
as highway-runways and concealed operating bases for vertical
short-takeoff and landing aircraft, will be high. Even in countries
where the United States currently has basing rights, such as Japan, the
political challenges will be immense. Moreover, countries that sign on
to this plan know they are certain targets and may calculate that the
costs of allowing this basing plan outweigh the benefits. And to be
truly effective, maintenance, logistics, and personnel must be made
mobile to support this scheme, which rapidly becomes a very expensive
approach that might best be tackled another way.

Beyond Purple to Cobalt Blue-Another
key to the success of the ASBC will be institutionalizing a close
collaborative relationship between the Navy and Air Force beyond the
initial exhilaration of the ASBC's maiden release. The model for this is
the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act that forced cooperation among all the
services using clear incentives tied to promotion of the officer corps.
For the ASBC to sustain a protracted pattern of cooperation, an
institutionalized cadre of officers, planners, and procurement
specialists must be put in place. Otherwise, the services will fall back
into their familiar patterns of competition.

Where the Family Shops-It
is too early to tell what impact the ASBC will have on procurement and
the focus of the industrial base. If the plan calls for a refinement of
legacy systems, then the impact could be light. But if the ASBC
introduces a radical approach, the impact could be quite large, even if
this change is more evolutionary than revolutionary. This would be good
news for some and troubling news for others.

The ASBC is as much about developing credible combat power and the
military doctrine to support it as it is about long-term competition.
Thus, any concept must analyze the holistic impact and strategic costs
to sustain and win the long-term competition with any peer or near-peer
state. While the adjustments to doctrine, operational plans, and system
acquisition resulting from the ASBC are yet unknown, ultimately the ASBC
must be more than simply a sharing of assets or cooperation for its own
sake. It must integrate some unique set of capabilities from both
services to create real synergistic effects that neither service can
accomplish individually.

1. CDR James Stavridis, USN, A New Air Sea Battle Concept: Integrated Strike Forces (Washington D.C.: National Defense University National War College, 1992), p. 3.

Mr. Carreno is the head of the Strategic and Business Planning Branch
at SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific, and has written previously for Proceedings.
Professor Culora is the chairman of the Warfare Analysis and Research
Department at the Naval War College. He is a retired Navy captain who
commanded both HSL-47 and the USS Boxer (LHD-4) and was a fellow at both Harvard University and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Captain Galdorisi is director of the Corporate Strategy Group at SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific. His latest book is Leave No Man Behind: the Saga of Combat Search and Rescue (MBI Publishing Co., 2009).
Mr. Hone is a former special assistant to the commander of the Naval Air Systems Command, co-author of American & British Aircraft Carrier Development, 1919-1941 (Naval Institute Press, 1999), and a professor at the Naval War College.

divendres, 23 de desembre de 2011

The landing platform dock 17, San Antonio Class, is the latest class
of amphibious force ship for the United States Navy. The mission of the
San Antonio class is to transport the US Marine Corps "mobility triad" –
that is, advanced amphibious assault vehicles (AAAVs), air-cushioned
landing craft (LCAC) and the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft – to
trouble spots around the world.

Construction of the first ship of 12, the San Antonio (LPD 17), began
in June 2000. The ship's keel was laid in December 2000. It was
launched in July 2003 and commissioned in January 2006. The San Antonio
is homeported at Norfolk naval base, Virginia. The vessel achieved
initial operating capability (IOC) in May 2008 and made its first
deployment in August 2008 as part of the Iwo Jima expeditionary strike
group.

The keel of the second ship, New Orleans (LPD 18), was laid in
October 2002. It was launched in November 2004, delivered in December
2006 and commissioned in March 2007. The keel of the third, Mesa Verde
(LPD 19), was laid in February 2003, launched in January 2005 and
commissioned in December 2007.

The keel for the fourth, USS Green Bay (LPD 20), was laid in August
2003, launched in August 2006 and delivered in August 2008. It was
commissioned in January 2009. New Orleans and Green Bay are homeported
at San Diego.

The keel for USS New York (LPD 21) was laid in September 2004. It was
launched in December 2007 and commissioned in November 2009.
Construction of USS New York included 24t of steel salvaged from the
wreckage of the World Trade Center, as a memorial to those who lost
their lives in New York on 11 September 2001.

Other contracted vessels are the San Diego (LPD 22), Anchorage (LPD
23), Arlington (LPD 24), Somerset (LPD 25) and Murtha (LPD 26). The keel
of San Diego was laid in May 2007 and launched in May 2010 for
commissioning in 2011. Arlington's keel was laid in May 2008 and
launched in November 2010. The Keel of Anchorage was laid in September
2007 and launched in February 2011.

The last ship is scheduled for delivery by 2012. The ships are to
replace the functions of the LPD 4, LSD 36, LKA 113 and LST 1179 classes
of amphibious ships.

In December 1996 the US Navy awarded a contract to an industrial
alliance led by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems (formerly Litton
Avondale), with General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Raytheon Electronic
Systems and Intergraph Corporation, to design and construct the first of
an anticipated 12 ships under the navy's LPD 17 programme. It was
planned that Avondale would build eight and Bath Iron Works four ships.

However, in June 2002, the US Navy signed an MoU with Northrop
Grumman and Bath Iron Works, making Northrop Grumman responsible for the
construction of all San Antonio Class vessels, while Bath is the
builder of four Arleigh Burke destroyers, previously assigned to
Northrop Grumman.

Design

The ship is constructed from steel and designed to minimise radar
cross section. Enhanced survivability features include improved
fragmentation and nuclear blast protection and shock-hardened structure.
Automation and integration of systems has enabled a significant
reduction in crew, projected to be 361.

The ship provides three vehicle decks of 25,402ft² and two cargo
holds with 25,548ft³ for bulk cargo and ammunition magazines in addition
to 1,234m³ for cargo fuel.

Accommodation is provided for two LCAC (landing craft air cushioned),
700 troops and 14 new AAAVs. Each LCAC is capable of carrying 60t of
cargo and vehicles, including the M1A2 Abrams tank, at speeds of up to
40kt.

The ship's advanced enclosed mast / sensor (AEM/S) system consists of
two large eight-sided structures, which house the radar and
communications antennae with a hybrid frequency-selective surface. As
well as reducing the ship's radar cross section, the AEM/S system also
protects the equipment from exposure to the elements.

Aircraft

At the stern of the ship the landing deck is able to accommodate two
Sikorsky CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopters, six Bell AH-1W Super Cobra
helicopters, four Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters or two Boeing Bell
MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.

The hangar deck provides aviation maintenance facilities and is
sufficiently large to accommodate one Sea Stallion, two Sea Knight,
three Super Cobra helicopters or one MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.
The hangar doors are constructed by Indal Technologies. Each
blast-resistant door weighs 18,000kg and has three horizontal folding
panels.

USS San Antonio began flight operations testing with the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor and CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter in June 2006.

Weapon systems

Two mk31 mod 0 launchers are capable of launching the fire-and-forget
Raytheon rolling airframe missile (RAM). The RAM (RIM 116)
surface-to-air missile has dual-mode radio frequency / infrared guidance
and is designed to engage anti-ship missiles. It has a range of 8km.
Space and weight provision has been made for the future fitting of a
vertical launcher for the evolved Seasparrow missile (ESSM) if required.

The ship is equipped with two mk46 mod 1 30mm guns for close-in
surface self-defence. The mk46 is a dual-axis stabilised chain gun with a
firing rate of up to 250 rounds a minute. The fire director includes a
thermal imager, low-light TV camera and laser rangefinder, with a
closed-loop tracking system.

The gun can be operated locally at the gun turret or remotely in the
combat information centre. Additional armament includes two mk26 mod 18
50-calibre machine guns.

SSDS (ship self-defence system)

San Antonio is one of the classes of vessels planned to receive the
SSDS (ship self-defence system) mk2 being developed by Raytheon for the
US Navy. SSDS will be an integration of all the ship's self-defence
systems and will include multi-function radar, advanced integrated
electronic warfare system and infrared search and track system (IRST).

LPD 22, the sixth of the class, is scheduled to be the first ship to
receive the complete system, which will be retrofitted to the rest of
the class. SSDS is also to be fitted to the US Navy projected new
carriers (CVN 76) and destroyers (DD-X).

The ship is equipped with a fibre-optic shipboard wide area network
(SWAN) from Raytheon, which connects ship systems, sensors and combat
systems to the ship’s command consoles.

In February 2004, Harris Corporation was awarded a contract to
provide high-frequency (HF) radio broadband communications systems for
the San Antonio Class.

Countermeasures

The ship is equipped with the AN/SLQ-25A Nixie towed decoy system,
from Argon ST of Fairfax, Virginia, and the mk53 Nulka decoy launching
system, developed by the Australian Defence Science and Technology
Organisation in Canberra and Lockheed Martin Sippican in Massachusetts.

Nulka is a hovering rocket system, which seduces incoming missiles away from the ship.

The Raytheon AN/SLQ-32A (V) 2 ESM (electronic support measures)
system is a detection and jamming system which provides surveillance,
warning and electronic countermeasures against missile attack.

LPD 22 and later vessels will be fitted with the advanced integrated electronic warfare system (AIEWS).

The ship's electrical power is provided by five 2,500kW Caterpillar
ship service diesel generators (SSDG), with self-cleaning strainers and
filters and electric pumps. Seven 200t York air-conditioning units are
fitted for cooling of systems and habitation. The ship auxiliary systems
are all electric, including electric heating, electric water heaters
and a 72,000gpd reverse osmosis water-generating plant.

The
Indian naval designers have been working on cutting edge ships of the
future. CNN-IBN caught up with naval experts at the President's Fleet
Review to find out what the Indian navy fleet will look like, 10 years
from now. The Indian Navy will have a three hulled ship or the Trimaran
virtually invisible to the enemy radar because of its stealth design.
Its deck gun and missiles have been concealed in every respect.

"We are also going to use multi-function radars, already
our destroyers and new gen frigates are going to have multi-function
radars and they are using the vertical launch systems," he added.

The Trimaran concept design follows in the wake of the Navy's first
stealth design, the Project 17 Shivalik class ships, two of which are
now at sea with a third on the way.

But the Navy is banking on the Shivalik's successor,
the Project 17 Alfa stealth vessel, which will have missile silos flush
with the deck and torpedo launchers blending along the sides of the
vessel. There will also be a concealed hangar for a Kamov helicopter.
Naval designers admit that US concepts have influenced some of their
ideas.

"If you look at the LCS design of the US Navy, they are moving
on the seaframe concept and mission modularity.The idea is to have a
basic seaframe for the platform and have a mission module so that you
can have role changes for the ship and there can be a quick turnaround
of roles," Vaidyanathan said.

With an eye on the future, the Navy is moving towards modular construction
and may even participate in Britain's Global Combat Ship project where
individual navies can use a common low cost platform to fit their own
weapons and systems.

dijous, 22 de desembre de 2011

20 December 2011

HMS York has returned to Portsmouth after spending the past week
shadowing the activities of Russia’s biggest warship, the Admiral
Kuznetsov, around the British Isles.

The destroyer observed the movements of the carrier and her task group
of half a dozen escorts and support vessels off Scotland and the west
coast of Ireland, where the Kuznetsov conducted flying operations with
her Su-33 Flanker jets.

COMING
in to land on the deck of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral
Kuznetsov is a Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker jet under the watchful eyes of a
Russian Helix helicopter – and HMS York.

The
Portsmouth-based destroyer has spent a week shadowing and observing
Russia’s biggest warship and her task group as she made her way around
the British Isles.

York
was alerted as the Fleet Ready Escort – the on-call frigate or
destroyer which responds to events at short notice – earlier this month
and greeted the Kuznetsov task group, northeast of the Orkneys, on
December 12.

It’s
the first time the 55,000-tonne leviathan has deployed near UK waters
in a number of years and she elected to take shelter from the winter
weather in international waters off the Moray Firth for four days.

When
the weather finally abated, the carrier group – the Kuznetsov plus one
destroyer, a frigate, three tankers and an ocean-going tug – sailed
around the top of Scotland and into the Atlantic past western Ireland,
conducting flying operations when weather permitted with her Mach 2
Flankers and Helix helicopters in international airspace.

All the time the Kuznetsov, named after a wartime Soviet naval leader, has been under the gaze of HMS York.

“As
the Fleet Ready Escort, York has maintained a watch on the Russian task
group, demonstrating clearly the Royal Navy's presence and conducting
our routine business around what are our home waters,” said York’s
Commanding Officer Cdr Rex Cox.

“We
are well-practised in this type of operation and are ready to position
anywhere around the UK and provide appropriate presence when called
upon.

“My
ship’s company have put in a cracking effort in some pretty challenging
weather conditions and are now looking forward to some well-deserved
Christmas leave and time with their families.”

With the Russian task group continuing south and away from UK home waters, the Type 42 has returned home to Portsmouth.

With work on the Indian navy's future aircraft carrier the INS Vikramaditya now 90% complete, an RSK MiG-29K fighter has been placed aboard the vessel for the first time.

Pictured on the carrier's deck at the Sevmash dockyard in
Severodvinsk, northern Russia during November, aircraft Side 311 was
deployed using a crane to serve as a mock-up only.

According to Sevmash, the Vikramaditya will start sea trials
in May 2012, with these to involve take-offs and landings using two
industry-owned aircraft. One is a purpose-built MiG-29K, while the other
is a MiG-35D two-seat demonstrator now being modified after the crash
of a MiG-29KUB trainer during trials in 2011.

Originally introduced to service with the Russian navy in 1987 as the Baku, but deactivated in 1992, the modified Vikramaditya now
features a "ski-jump" ramp and three arrestor wires to support fighter
operations. New Delhi's total investment in the ship is worth around $2
billion, with Sevmash expecting it to be commissioned into service on 4
December 2012 - Indian navy day.

Russia has so far delivered 11 of the 16 MiG-29K/KUBs ordered for the
Indian navy under a 2003 deal worth $530 million, with the remainder
due to be shipped to Goa before the end of 2011.

India also this year firmed up an option for 29 more navalised MiG-29s to equip its future homegrown aircraft carriers.